No it's not just you. I find it hard to explain but GitHub does have the right amount of white/empty space to make consumption of information easier. I've always hated the simplicity of GitHub's layout, but after studying their commits and branches pages for my product, I've grown to appreciate their simplicity.
It's the little things that GitHub does, that I've found makes the difference. Take GitLab's branches page here:
By limiting the number of branches shown and by creating strong visual breaks/barriers, they make it way easier for the user to focus. Seeing a wall of branches is okay ... when that's what you want, but as a default, by organizing it the way that GitHub does, they make their branches page significantly easier to consume.
I also find the buttons too be a little too big in GitLab and they don't have enough definition to them, to help you focus on them. Creating merge requests and comparing branches is the focal point of the branches page, and they should make it easier for your eyes to lock onto them.
Like I said, it's the little things that I can't explain that I've come to respect and I don't think it's just because we are familar with GitHub.
Agreed. I just signed up to try out GitLab and went to browse GitLab's own source code to see what they were using. First thing: Rails, clearly. Second thing: Holy crap, I have to scroll this much on my laptop to browse their project? The amount of whitespace is bonkers. A bit of googling tells me that they made this change a few months ago with GitLab 8.0, but the bug report about the whitespace seems to have been ignored.
I really like what GitLab is doing, but I also really like a powerful web-based repository browser (search tool included). Hopefully they just went a bit wild with the UI and they'll rein it in. (I also checked Preferences and they have a switch for fixed vs. fluid layout, so maybe they've been responsive to UI-change revolt in the past?)
I don't disagree with GitLab's network view being more useful. People also shouldn't assume GitHub isn't fallible with their decisions. The fact that it took, I don't know how many years for them to implement side by side diffs is living proof of this.
GitLab just needs to work on the little things and they can really be disruptive to GitHub's business.
Another little change that I think would go a long way, is changing the folder icon. I don't know why, but the round corners in the folder icon really irks me. There is also something off about the font that they are using. I think it's just too thick, but I can't really put my finger on it.
I was commenting more on how there is a hidden element that GitHub has, that would explain why the person that I responded to would feel he/she was looking at a wall of text. I used GitLab and GitHub's branches page as an example, since I studied both quite a bit and it was easy to highlight how sparseness has it's advantages and how it can shape ones perception.
It's the little things that GitHub does, that I've found makes the difference. Take GitLab's branches page here:
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/branches
vs
https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/branches
By limiting the number of branches shown and by creating strong visual breaks/barriers, they make it way easier for the user to focus. Seeing a wall of branches is okay ... when that's what you want, but as a default, by organizing it the way that GitHub does, they make their branches page significantly easier to consume.
I also find the buttons too be a little too big in GitLab and they don't have enough definition to them, to help you focus on them. Creating merge requests and comparing branches is the focal point of the branches page, and they should make it easier for your eyes to lock onto them.
Like I said, it's the little things that I can't explain that I've come to respect and I don't think it's just because we are familar with GitHub.